CHAPTER
31
Alex Shimoff’s second drawing aired on the six o’clock news. A bored talking-head noted the suspect’s “winter coat” and a possible history of “thyroid issues.” Total broadcast time: thirty-two seconds.
I froze the frame. This sketch was lifelike, the broad face impassive.
This was the man I’d seen huddled in a corner booth at Bijou, inches from a group of moms and tots.
Robin said, “He looks blank. Like something’s missing. Or maybe Shimoff didn’t have enough to work with.”
“He did.”
She looked at me. I’d already told her some of what Cahane had related. Took it no further.
Blanche studied each of us. We sat there.
Robin said, “Eleven years old,” and walked out of the room.
Milo’d been off the radar all day but he phoned about an hour after the broadcast. My searches using Grant Huggler’s name had proved fruitless.
He said, “Catch it? Big improvement, no? His Exaltedness pulled strings because ‘shit needs turning over so it won’t stink worse than it already is.’ Anyway, we’ve got a piece of fine art, even Shimoff’s satisfied. The tip lines just started to light up, so far it’s fewer than we got the first time, maybe Joe Public’s played out. But Moe caught one worth looking into. Anonymous female caller says a guy fitting Shearling’s description received his thyroid prescription at a clinic in Hollywood, she hung up when Reed asked her which one. A place in Hollywood fits a guy on the streets and puts him in proximity to Lem Eccles. All the clinics Petra called are closed until tomorrow, she’ll follow up and if God’s feeling generous we’ll get a name.”
“God loves you,” I said. “His name’s Grant Huggler.”
“What?”
I recapped the meeting with Cahane.
He said, “He leaves it for you to find in the damn bathroom? What was that, pretending he wasn’t actually a snitch?”
“He left it folded like origami. Setting up a little production but distancing himself from it. He’s a complicated guy, spends a lot of energy on self-justification.”
“Is he a reliable guy?”
“I believe what he told me.”
“Grant Huggler,” he said. “Eleven years old a quarter century ago makes him thirty-six, which fits our witness reports. Can’t be too many with that name, I’m plugging him in now-well looky here, male Cauc, six feet, two thirty-six, picked up five years ago in Morro Bay for trespassing, possible intent to commit burglary… a doctor’s office, that probably means they nabbed him just as he broke in to score dope… which fits with a street guy with psych issues… no prison sentence, he got pled down to jail time served… here’s the mug shot. Long hair, scruffy beard but the face behind all that pelt looks kinda chubby… talk about weird eyes. Dead, like he’s staring into the Great Abyss.”
“No busts before then?”
“Nope, that’s it. Not much of a criminal history for someone who’s now a serial gutter.”
I said, “Morro Bay’s not far from Atascadero, which is one of the places dangerous patients were transferred when V-State shut down. A first offense five years ago could mean he was locked up until then. If so, he’s been incarcerated for twenty years.”
“Plenty of time to stew.”
“And to fantasize.”
“He’d be treated with meds, right?”
“Possibly.”
“I’m asking that because if it was dope he was after, maybe he got hooked on something, tried to boost from a doctor’s office. Though once he got out, wouldn’t he be sent to some kind of outpatient facility where he could score legally?”
“That assumes he’d show up,” I said. “And few patients crave psychotropics, something recreational would be more likely. I’m betting he was noncompliant about aftercare, if for no other reason than he’d want to avoid waiting rooms.”
“Little medical phobia, huh? Yeah, getting your neck sliced for no reason can do that to you-so maybe he was trying to swipe thyroid meds because he hated waiting rooms.”
“Anxiety about medical settings could explain being so tense in Glenda Usfel’s scan room. Toss in some hormonal irritability, add Usfel’s aggressive nature, and you’d have a volatile situation. But he didn’t react impulsively, just the opposite. He bided his time, planned, stalked her, took action. I suppose spending most of your life in a highly structured environment could instill patience and an interesting sense of focus.”
“Losing an organ he didn’t have to lose,” he said. “Doing that to a kid. Barbaric. Now he’s out, practicing his own brand of surgery.”
“Avenging old wrongs and some new ones,” I said. “I’d like to know the name of the surgeon who operated on him. All Cahane remembered was that the office was in Camarillo.”
“Another victim before he got to L.A.? No similars have shown up anywhere.”
“One person who did meet an interesting end was the psychologist who orchestrated the thyroidectomy. When Cahane got back, he lost no time firing him and the following day he dropped dead in the hospital parking lot. Apparent heart attack. Sound familiar?”
“Lem Eccles’s wife-Rosetta. Oh, Jesus. Eccles was nuts but not wrong?”
“There’s more, Big Guy. The psychologist’s name was Bernhard Shacker.”
“Same as the guy who analyzed Vita for Well-Start? What the hell’s going on? Some sort of identity theft?”
“Has to be,” I said. “The man I spoke to was in his late forties and the real Shacker was nearly eighty when he keeled over. The real Shacker was Belgian and the diploma I saw in that office was from a university in Belgium. When Shacker-the guy calling himself Shacker-saw me looking at it, he said something about his Catholic phase. Photoshopping fancy-looking paper isn’t any big deal.”
“A scamster making it in B.H.?”
“I’m wondering if his transgressions go beyond practicing without a license. Because pulling off the murders would be a lot easier with two people involved.”
“Where’d that come from?”
“Eccles’s fear of a guard at V-State. Huggler may be your prototypical odd loner but that doesn’t preclude someone from gaining his trust. Someone he met while at V-State.”
“Another lunatic?” he said. “Working as a guard? Now he’s palming himself off as a shrink? Good Lord.”
“Faking it would be a lot easier for someone who’d worked on psych wards long enough to soak up the terminology. Eccles was confined at V-State the same time as Huggler. Maybe in Specialized Care because he’d gotten overly aggressive with a judge. There’s no reason to think he didn’t continue being his usual combative, obnoxious self. That got him on a guard’s bad side. But the guard was too clever to face off against Eccles, took it out on Eccles’s only visitor. The woman Eccles considered his wife. She really was poisoned and when he got away with it, he did the same to Bernhard Shacker.”
“Get on my bad side, you die,” he said. “Another touchy one?”
“Common ground for a relationship. Cahane described Huggler as cooperative, compliant. Even so, his recreational time was supervised. For his safety. That meant being supervised by a guard whenever he left his room. What if it was the same guard each time and a bond developed? The man passing himself off as Shacker would’ve been in his twenties back then, perfect age to be a mentor to an isolated adolescent. The bond was solidified forever when he eliminated the man who’d robbed Huggler of a vital organ. And the bond could’ve remained strong enough for the mentor to travel with Huggler-seeking out a job at Atascadero when Huggler got transferred there.”
“And now they’re traveling together.”
“For at least five years,” I said. “If that’s the case, Huggler’s not crashing on the street. He’s living securely
